Economy should grow by 10%, says Subramanian Swamy

AHMEDABAD: BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Saturday said that the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) was forced to release the economic survey in haste after demonetization.
He, however, said that the country had achieved an average growth rate of 7.6% in the first three years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government which was better than the 7.1% growth rate in UPA-2 regime.

"Do not go by the quarterly data of economic growth. They are all bogus," Swamy alleged on Saturday. He was speaking on the topic, 'Indian Economy-Challenges and Way Forward', at a meeting of Chartered Accountants (CAs) in the city.

"Recently I went to the CSO with the minister Sadanand Gowda. Gowda called the CSO person because there was pressure to put out data on the demonetisation. So they put out the data (saying) that there was no impact. I asked the CSO director how did you estimate the GDP for this quarter when demonetisation was in November and you gave a printed economic survey on February 1? The survey must have gone for printing three weeks before in the 1st week of January. CSO calculated the GDP to show no impact," Swami said.

Swamy also asked audience not to believe in the international rating agencies including Moody's and Fitch's. Moody's, a global credit rating agency, had last month upgraded India's sovereign rating after a period of 13 years. Fitch had cut India's GDP growth forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2018 to 6.7 per cent from its earlier projection of 6.9 per cent in September.

"There is no doubt that there has been some acceleration during the NDA period. But that is not enough. Our growth rate should not be less than 10% . India has clocked an average annual growth of 7.6% which was better than 7.1% clocked in the previous three years of the UPA government," said Swamy.